Abstract
Abstract: The objective of this work was to evaluate the use of both single- and triple-row production systems in two drip-irrigated sweet corn cultivars under dry Mediterranean climate conditions. A two-year field experiment (2017 and 2018) was carried out in clay loam soil. The following three combinations spacing between crop rows and drip-line lateral spacing, with three replicates for each cultivar, were applied: single rows at 75 cm spacing, with one drip-line lateral spacing for each crop row; single rows at 75 cm row spacing, with one drip-line lateral spacing for three crop rows; and triple rows, 37.5 cm apart, on 225 cm centers, with one drip-line lateral spacing for each triple row. The responses of both cultivars were similar. In addition, husked cob yield and irrigation water use efficiency (IWUE) significantly reduced as the drip-line lateral spacing increased in single rows. Yield loss was 35.2% in relation to the 75 cm spacing. However, when the triple-row system with 225 cm drip-line lateral spacing was adopted, yield and IWUE were noticeably improved, and the yield loss was moderated to 16%, due to the improvement in soil water conditions in the triple rows. For improved yield and IWUE, the combination of triple rows with the 225-cm drip-line lateral spacing is an efficient drip-irrigated planting pattern for sweet corn production in dry Mediterranean climate conditions.
Highlights
Crop production and in-field water use efficiency have been proved to be enhanced under drip-irrigation methods compared with others (Goyal, 2014, 2015; Venot et al, 2017)
Husked cob yield and irrigation water use efficiency (IWUE) significantly reduced as the drip-line lateral spacing increased in single rows
The analysis of variance showed that crop row/drip-line lateral spacing, but not the cultivar, significantly influenced the measured parameters
Summary
Crop production and in-field water use efficiency have been proved to be enhanced under drip-irrigation methods compared with others (Goyal, 2014, 2015; Venot et al, 2017). Because of the lack of rainfall in dry regions, and the inability of drip irrigation with wider drip-line lateral spacing to wet the soil surface away from drip-line laterals, seed germination may be a problem, and the early growth period could be limited by water stress, especially in sandy soils and in soils with large cracks, which restricts the horizontal infiltration of drip irrigation as capillary barrier (Qi et al, 2020). In this case, excessive pre-planting irrigations will not be feasible, and a backup irrigation system is required to support seed germination. Even in regions showing reliable rainfall, the yield reduction due to row-to-row variation may increase under wider lateral spacing (Lamm et al, 1997; Bozkurt et al, 2006; Chen et al, 2015; Fischer et al, 2019; Lv et al, 2019)
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